Body Parts

LOS ANGELES -- Officials at the University of California, Los Angeles, acknowledged yesterday that parts of bodies donated for medical research there had instead been sold, and apologized for a failure in oversight. Donors' families, meanwhile, filed a lawsuit against the school, contending that the director of the university's Willed Body Program had been selling body parts illegally for years with the knowledge of other UCLA officials. UCLA has denied knowing about the sales.

Police found 18 dismembered and beheaded bodies inside two vans in an area frequented by tourists near the city of Guadalajara in western Mexico, authorities said Wednesday. Jalisco state Prosecutor Tomas Coronado said earlier police found 15 severed human heads in the vans a few miles from Lake Chapala and his office confirmed later in a statement that three more heads had been found along with the other body parts. "The bodies are dismembered," Coronado said in an interview transcript provided by his office.

LOS ANGELES - Coroner's officials identified the man whose dismembered head, hands, and feet were found in a Hollywood park, but they are not releasing his name as police continue to hunt for his killer, authorities said yesterday. The identity, age, and hometown of the victim were withheld because his next of kin had not been notified, and because police investigators had placed a "security hold" on the information, Los Angeles County coroner's spokesman Ed Winter said. The head was found Tuesday by a dog walker at Bronson Canyon, and police searchers turned up the man's hands and feet...

Prosecutors say a Russian immigrant has been jailed without bail in New York City after admitting he killed and dismembered his roommate. Sergey Mamonov appeared in court Wednesday to face a second-degree murder charge. There was no immediate response to a message left with his attorney on Thursday. A criminal complaint says the 50-year-old Mamonov told police he beat his roommate to death during a fight on March 25 and carved up his body. NYPD detectives went to the Brooklyn home earlier this week in response to a tip that the roommate was missing.

NEW YORK - The mastermind of a scheme to plunder corpses from funeral homes in the Northeast and sell them for millions of dollars pleaded guilty yesterday in a deal that could send him to prison for more than five decades. Michael Mastromarino, a 44-year-old former oral surgeon, confessed to the judge that he carried out the scheme from 2001 to 2005. He will face 18 to 54 years and will have to forfeit $4.68 million. He pleaded guilty to 14 counts that include enterprise corruption, body stealing, and reckless endangerment.

COLUMBUS, Ohio - The state Supreme Court heard arguments yesterday over whether the brain, heart, and other body parts removed during an autopsy should be returned to the relatives of the deceased instead of being destroyed as medical waste. The parents of Christopher Albrecht say they had the right to bury their son with his brain intact instead of it being permanently removed at his autopsy. Their lawsuit against coroners and commissioners in 87 of Ohio's 88 counties raises ethical, moral, and religious questions about the treatment of bodies after death.

NEW YORK -- Michael Bruno was an immigrant who worked hard and spoke his mind, then succumbed to kidney cancer two years ago at age 75. "Typical Italian cab driver," recalled his son, Vito. "He had an opinion about everything. " It's only after death that his story became ghoulish. Authorities believe his body and those of hundreds of other people -- including British broadcaster Alistair Cooke -- were carved up in the back rooms of several funeral parlors citywide to remove human bone, skin, and tendons without required permission from their...

CAMBRIDGE -- Since change defined the career of John Coplans (1920-2003), it makes perfect sense that it should define his photographs, too. Beginning as a painter in Britain, he became a critic in America, an important critic (Coplans was a founder of Artforum). He became an influential museum curator and director. Then he took up photography. A narrow (if also universal) form of change defines Coplans's photography: physical decay. He was 60 when he began taking pictures, and they were self-portraits -- or, rather, portions of self-portraits.

California authorities say a San Bernardino woman was arrested for investigation of murder after she was seen pushing a trash can with body parts inside. Police arrested 51-year-old Carmen Montenegro Sunday night in an Ontario neighborhood. Investigators spent Monday excavating the property outside the home where the body is believed to have come from. A detective says they found what may be body fluids in part of the yard. The home is about 200 yards from where Montenegro was spotted pushing the can and is owned by a relative of hers.

LOS ANGELES - Los Angeles investigators found two human hands yesterday in the Hollywood wilderness park where a severed head in a plastic bag was discovered by dog walkers, and the search continued for other body parts. The hands were discovered in Bronson Canyon as dozens of police officers, including homicide investigators, combed the brush along a winding trail a few miles below the Hollywood sign. A coroner's cadaver dog found the first hand about 50 yards from where the head was discovered on Tuesday afternoon, the Los Angeles Times reported.

WASHINGTON - The soldier accused of killing 17 Afghan villagers this month told his lawyers he has suffered from severe nightmares, flashbacks of war scenes, and persistent headaches after his multiple combat tours, one of the attorneys said Wednesday. Army Staff Sergeant Robert Bales told his legal team he has long awakened with night sweats, often replaying memories of a grisly episode that he and his infantry company witnessed in Iraq several years ago, according to John Henry Browne, a civilian lawyer.

A man charged with killing another man with an ax and eating body parts is set to return to a Connecticut courtroom for a hearing on whether prosecutors have enough evidence to continue pursuing a murder charge. A probable cause hearing is scheduled for Monday morning in Bridgeport Superior Court in the case of 35-year-old Tyree Smith, a Florida resident who grew up in Ansonia, Conn. Smith is charged with murdering Angel Gonzalez in Bridgeport on Dec. 15. Police say Smith ate one of Gonzalez's eyeballs and part of his brain.

MILWAUKEE - A planned walking tour providing a peek into serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer's life and the Milwaukee haunts where he met and stalked his victims is drawing protests, even prompting online deal maker Groupon to cancel what some called a creepy promotion. Victims' families and others call the tour an attempt to exploit an ugly part of the city's history and want it to be stopped before the first sightseers hit the sidewalks. But tour organizer Bam Marketing and Media has said it is not deterred.

WASHINGTON - The mortuary at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware disposed of some body parts of the victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks by burning them and dumping the ashes in a landfill, an independent panel said in a report released yesterday. The method of disposal of the remains, which has not been previously disclosed, was limited to what the report said were "several portions of remains" that could not be identified from the Pentagon attack and the crash site in Shanksville, Pa. The report said the remains were cremated and placed in containers provided to a biomedical waste...

I DON'T REMEMBER who won the best screenplay awards at the Academy Awards on Sunday night. All I recall is Angelina Jolie's leg. Jutting out from a massive slit in Jolie's dress, as she presented the awards in a dominatrix pose, the leg stole the show. It practically ate the Oscars. By Monday afternoon, the Twitter feed @AngiesRightLeg had more than 15,000 followers. Body parts were all the rage at the Oscars, actually; a crop of mostly forgettable films upstaged by Jolie's leg (not to mention her disturbingly thin arms)

A man charged with hacking a Connecticut man to death with an ax and eating some body parts is due in a state courtroom under tight security after being returned from Florida. Thirty-five-year-old Tyree Lincoln Smith is scheduled to be arraigned Wednesday in Bridgeport Superior Court on a murder charge. The Connecticut Post reports (http://bit.ly/AbsNDU) that Smith was returned to Connecticut on Tuesday afternoon after having been arrested last week in Lynn Haven, Fla. Police say Smith, who grew up in Ansonia, killed a homeless Bridgeport man, Angel Gonzalez,...

NEW YORK -- The owner of a New Jersey biomedical firm made millions of dollars by stealing body parts from a Brooklyn funeral home and selling them for procedures done by doctors across the country, prosecutors said yesterday. Michael Mastromarino, the owner of Biomedical Tissue Services of Fort Lee, N.J., Joseph Micelli, a Brooklyn mortician, and two other men were awaiting arraignment on charges including enterprise corruption, body stealing, opening graves, unlawful dissection, and forgery, according to Josh Hanshaft, an assistant district attorney in Brooklyn.

LOS ANGELES - A man was convicted yesterday of carving up cadavers donated to UCLA's medical school and selling the parts to unsuspecting medical research companies in a $1.5 million scheme. Jurors found Ernest Nelson, 51, guilty of eight counts, including grand theft and tax evasion. Prosecutors said Nelson could face 12 years in prison, and they want him to repay $1.5 million to UCLA. Nelson "was willing to go into a willed body program and cut up body parts for his own personal financial gain," prosecutor Marisa Zarate said.

RE "ANOTHER thing I'll never have to try again" by Beth Teitell (G section, Jan. 19): I'm no yoga goddess, but after three years of near-daily Ashtanga yoga practice, I've slowly - some days, imperceptibly - become stronger and more flexible and balanced. It is patience that distinguishes yoga from exercises that stretch out body parts into contorted positions. When practiced correctly, yoga is the antithesis of the American way: no quick solutions, no competition, no crazy expressions of individuality.